About Me

I am a lawyer in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada who enjoys reading, especially mysteries. Since 2000 I have been writing personal book reviews. This blog includes my reviews, information on and interviews with authors and descriptions of mystery bookstores I have visited. I strive to review all Saskatchewan mysteries. Other Canadian mysteries are listed under the Rest of Canada. As a lawyer I am always interested in legal mysteries. I have a separate page for legal mysteries. Occasionally my reviews of legal mysteries comment on the legal reality of the mystery. You can follow the progression of my favourite authors with up to 15 reviews. Each year I select my favourites in "Bill's Best of ----". As well as current reviews I am posting reviews from 2000 to 2011. Below my most recent couple of posts are the posts of Saskatchewan mysteries I have reviewed alphabetically by author. If you only want a sentence or two description of the book and my recommendation when deciding whether to read the book look at the bold portion of the review. If you would like to email me the link to my email is on the profile page.

Monday, July 2, 2012

“G” is for John Grisham (Part One)

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme hosted by
Kerrie Smith at her excellent blog, Mysteries in Paradise, feels like it is
going faster than a letter a week. The first week of July is for the letter
“G”. Continuing my way through the alphabet with the surnames of authors I have
read I am profiling the world’s most successful legal mystery writer, John
Grisham. Instead, of going through his life I will look at his legal career and
how I see it applied to his books. I have decided to make it a two part post
with the legal career in the first post and discussion in my next post on
Wednesday.

After faltering at other college programs he
studied accounting at Mississippi State University. He went to the University
of Mississippi to take law. He planned to be a tax lawyer but became interested
in criminal law. He graduated in 1981.

He returned to Southaven, Mississippi to
practice law. His family had been residents for some years. (Southaven is in
the northwest corner of the state and is often referred to as a suburb of Memphis.)
For almost a decade Grisham practiced criminal law and personal injury
litigation. He is described in his website bio as working 60-70 hours a week in
a small firm. The time commitment and effort is familiar to my experience as a
litigator in a small firm.

In an excellent article in The Guardian Grisham described his
practice.

"I
represented real people, poor people, who often couldn't afford to pay a
lawyer, but still had problems. Directly across the street from my office were
insurance companies, banks and big corporations. It was a very clear line
between us, and I learned very quickly who my friends were. That's when I
became a Democratic activist and eventually ran for office."

My practice also involves the needs and
problems of people. A Canadian lawyer I know recounted a conversation he had
with a lawyer who represented corporations in court actions. The corporate
defender succinctly described the difference between acting for individuals
like myself and Grisham and his work for the corporate world. He said he
represented the people with the money.

On making money the Guardian article said:

He says the
nature of the work he took on meant that sometimes he got paid and sometimes he
didn't. "I had a lot of trouble saying no and therefore I never made that
much money”.

In this kind of people practice you do not
need to do pro bono work. You have
enough clients whose problems are too small to pay the regular fees the work
would involve or the work becomes far more involved than what they can pay for
what must be done.

Grisham’s inspiration for his first novel
came from a court appearance. In his website bio it states:

One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham
overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was
inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl’s
father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several
hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987.

While I do not expect to become a mystery
author, if it takes getting up at 5:00 a.m. to get your first book written, I
can guarantee it will never happen. Today Grisham says he writes
4-5 pages a day between 7:00 and 10:00 in the morning. I like his current
writing program.

There were 5,000 copies of A Time to Kill published and Grisham
said he took 1,000 of them around Mississippi giving them to libraries and
trying to sell the book. His writing career rocketed with the sale of movie
rights to The Firm, his second book,
for $600,000 before the book was even published.

With writing success he left the legal
profession except for one case. It says much about Grisham that 5 years into
his writing career he took several months off from writing to honour a promise
to the family of a railway brakeman killed by being crushed between two cars to
represent them at trial. Grisham won the case. His website said the award of
$683,500 was the highest he gained for a client during his legal career.

In Part II I will have some thoughts on his
legal mysteries and discuss how Grisham’s books reflect the author’s attitudes
towards the practice of law.

14 comments:

Bill - Thanks for that fascinating perspective on Grisham's legal career. I must say I admire his work ethic and his self-discipline with regard to his writing. And some of his novels have been really absorbing and raised such important issues.

I like John Grisham, the person, his writing, principles, including anti-racist and activism. He is a good guy.

I've read nearly all of his books, starting with A Time to Kill, which was terrific.

I've breezed through and enjoyed several of his books, learned something in others as in The Chamber, which helped to cement my anti-death penalty views. And I laughed at others, such as The Rainmaker.

And now in the John and Renee Grisham seat at the University of Mississippi, is Tom Franklin, who wrote the excellent Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter -- which non serious reader should skip.

kathy d.: Thanks for the comment. I admire that Grisham has used his fame to help the wrongfully convicted. As well, anyone who builds ball diamonds on their property for Little League baseball gets my appreciation.

I very much enjoyed reading this "legal biography" as I've enjoyed many books by Grisham (and not enjoyed a few). I love the ones about lawyers taking on the big guys in representing the little guys, but I did not know until now that he himself had a similar career before turning to writing full-time. I look forward to your next post on him.

I haven't read most of his recent work but I absolutely enjoyed his early work. I agree with you assessment... if I had to get up at 5 to write every day, I wouldn't get any writing done. On the other hand, his current schedule seems very nice. I remember reading that Stephen King used to do something similar. He would have to find time to write around the odd jobs he did. That shows some real dedication.

Rwally enjoyed part 1 Bill, especially as I am a lot more familiar with the movies than the books anyway and it is fascinating to hear about his legal background. Sad to say, if I got up at 5 I would only get an hour's writing done before I had to head off to work (the horrors of the commute ...)